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- Convenor:
-
Edalina Sanches
(University of Lisbon)
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- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- NB004
- Start time:
- 29 June, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Zurich
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
This panel examines the conditions under which the rural-urban divide demarcates different political behaviours, attitudes, patterns of regime support and party-citizen linkages from a case-study and comparative perspective.
Long Abstract:
Ethnicity is frequently portrayed as the key social cleavage in Africa influencing, among other things, redistributive policies, patterns of interparty competition, sources of regime support and citizens' political behaviour and attitudes. But what about other relevant territorial cleavages? Does the rural-urban divide demark two different political cultures? Does the nature of party-citizen linkages (e.g. clientelistic or programmatic) change accordingly? Do parties see value in capitalizing these territorial boundaries to gain support? Do the political differences between rural and urban areas vary when we compare countries that are more urbanized to those that are less? These are critical research questions to survey, given the political and demographic changes the continent has experienced over the past quarter century. Indeed, rapid urbanization is a, relatively, recent phenomenon in Sub-Saharan Africa and has been accompanied by social and economic exclusion of the majority of the people living in the big cities. This, in turn, has been increasingly countervailed by a growth of political intervention and contestation by urban citizens, in democratic and non-democratic countries. In rural areas where the majority of the population lives, collective efforts are even more critical for overcoming obstacles of effective participation. This panel invites paper givers to analyse the many ways in which the rural-urban divide impacts the political life of African countries using evidence from comparative or case studies
Accepted papers:
Session 1Edalina Sanches (University of Lisbon)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines citizens' trust in political institutions and support for democracy as a function of key individual-level variables (interpersonal trust and evaluations of regime performance) and of how they interact with the urban-rural divide. It draws on Afrobarometer data.
Paper long abstract:
Strong theoretical assumptions link trust (political and social) to democratic politics. Trust is as necessary requirement of democratic regime stability and effectiveness, but is certainly reinforced by democracy and good governance. Studies focusing on western countries find strong empirical correlations between interpersonal trust, trust in political institutions, and overall democratic endorsement. What about the African context? To what extent trust in political institutions and support for the democratic regime result from citizens' levels of interpersonal trust or are, otherwise, merely the product of the ways in which citizens evaluate the outputs of the political system? Furthermore to what extent citizens' levels of trust and support for democracy vary as a function of territorial cleavages? This paper examines these questions, drawing on Afrobarometer data (round 5) which includes 51587 interviews with individual citizens in 34 African countries. The aim is to carry out a multilevel analysis which will control for important macro-level variables (e.g. urban population) and to how they interact with key independent variables (interpersonal trust, and evaluations of regime performance) to explain trust in political institutions and support for democracy. I argue that these are relevant questions to be surveyed a quarter century after the inception of the democratic opening in the continent. Even though there are instances of democratic reversal and of authoritarian resilience the move towards democratization has happened in most countries. This makes relevant to survey the sources of democratic support and of political trust in Africa.
Robert Macdonald (University of Edinburgh)
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses what Tanzania’s rural population centres tell us about the county’s urban-rural political divide. It analyses the significance of these places as information conduits and sites of opposition activity in constituencies which tend to be dominated by the incumbents.
Paper long abstract:
Tanzania's ruling party continue to control a significant majority of rural constituencies at a time when opposition candidates have been able to win parliamentary seats in most large towns and cities. This paper begins by discussing the major causal factors behind this trend that has been gaining momentum over the last two decades. Two of these factors - the fact that rural voters have access to little information critical of the government, and opposition parties' difficulties in projecting themselves outside urban areas - are of particular interest when considering the rapidly growing population centres in Tanzania's rural constituencies.
As sites of in-migration, and because they form trade and transport hubs, rural population centres are generally places where the flow of information is high. They also tend to have a relatively strong opposition presence. These more typically urban characteristics highlight the shortcomings of using constituency boundaries to demarcate an urban-rural divide. Crucially, these centres are also well connected to the rest of their districts and act as conduits for flows of political information into smaller villages. This process already occurs on a small scale, both organically and as the result of deliberate opposition strategy. In the long-run, it has the potential to challenge some of the dynamics which have, up to this point, supported the government's electoral dominance of rural areas.
Mojana Vargas (ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon)
Paper short abstract:
This paper proposes the discussion about how the question of race affects the political positions of urban young people from Angolan cities, exploring the links between Angolan students in and outside the country and between local and external views on concepts like race and ethnicity.
Paper long abstract:
Race is always a sensitive topic to debate. Among the different definitions of what is race - or even if it effectivelly exists - there is a large range of positions. Despite of this, the race, understood as a social construction on the basis of unequal social relations, has been an important topic on recent social and political debate on African countries as Angola.
Hall (2013) says that the condition of people of african descent outside Africa is determinant on how they relate to this question, including on their political positioning.
In the other hand, African countries like Angola has treated the question of race as a secondary problem, given the priority of national unity construction (Malaquias, 1999). Assuming that race (and racism) was an colonial instrument to dominate local people, with the end of the colonial rule, this question would be automatically surpassed.
On present days, young Angolans from urban spaces are increasingly involved in the political debate, demanding more space for political participation and democracy. One of the instruments used to this purpose is the hip-hop language, which is marked by its concern with the debate of racial relations on diasporic spaces as Brazil, the United States and even Portugal.
If it is possible to say that the dialogue with diasporic spaces is a source to define their positions on democracy we wonder if the same can be can be verified regarding race and its effects on political positioning.
Elena Gadjanova (University of Exeter)
Paper short abstract:
The paper looks at the electoral strategies parties employ when seeking votes in urban versus rural areas in Ghana and Kenya.
Paper long abstract:
The urban-rural divide has received much attention in recent scholarship on African politics. But has it led to notable differences in how parties campaign in rural versus urban areas since the re-introduction of multi-partyism? Drawing on data on the speeches made by presidential candidates in Ghana and Kenya over the course of several electoral campaigns, this paper explores the scope and content of the urban-rural cleavage in these countries. It finds significant variation in the outreach strategies parties employ, the issues they highlight, and the mechanics of campaigns. The paper concludes by drawing attention to the difficulties parties face in reconciling the promises made in Africa's urban and rural areas, and what these imply for the durability of electoral coalitions on the continent.